You can by no means call me a hippie. I love my SUV and get heart palpitations if my mobile phone battery goes dead. I do try. I try to eat well, I try to recycle, I ride my bike, as long as there arent too many hills, and I did, despite my yuppie demeanour, have a homebirth.

I chose Homebirth because I hate hospitals. I hate drugs, especially ones that are administered via a three inch needle into my spine. Most of all I hate the thought of some midwife I have never met cajoling a panicked me, into decisions Im not sure I want to make; and thats if her shift doesnt finish before she gets the chance.

There is a relatively un-noticed travesty going on in Australia at the moment and I feel its time to speak out. Even if you are a staunch believer that babies should be born in a hospital environment I am hopeful that you are also a staunch believer in choice.

If the government gets its way, as of July the first 2010, having a home birth with a private midwife will be illegal. Red-tape insurance issues are the root of the problem and it will be passed shortly that midwives will be breaking the law if they operate without insurance. Insurance companies are refusing to insure homebirth midwives thanks to a lack of pressure from the government and despite abundant research that proves it is equally as safe as hospital birth. And thus here we are: a group of doting, caring, qualified individuals wearing cardigans and homemade jellewery, with nothing but love in their hearts are about to be made into quite serious lawbreakers. How ridiculous!

As a woman who chose the comfort of her own home and the assurance of a midwife who would see my pregnancy out until the very end, I feel troubled that the people I voted in to protect my freedoms are taking them away.

My Birth was as wonderful as pushing an eight pound 3 oz baby out your ying yang can be. It hurt, I wont deny it; a lot, in fact. But I was calm, my daughter was calm when she arrived into the world, we were both drug free and the midwife; whom I knew and trusted, with her assistant who had collectively delivered over 600 babies, were in complete control and able to deal with every situation that arose. Any dramas would have been spotted by these highly qualified individuals and I would have been rushed to hospital in no time, same as any other sick person. Thats if I had of got sick. But I wasnt sick, I was giving birth, a totally natural thing that our bodies are designed to do.

So if you believe in choice I would urge you to spend a minute of your time to get online and petition the government to protect womens choice for homebirth. This appalling decision will also drastically affect women in rural areas where homebirth is the only logical option.

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/australianhomebirth?e

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